Austin, Texas — If anyone alive right now should be overwhelmed by their blessings, it would be John Ridley.

The Mequon native won an Oscar this month for best adapted screenplay for "12 Years a Slave." He is in Austin working on the promising ABC pilot "American Crime," starring Timothy Hutton and Felicity Huffman. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article

The extremely violent — and preposterous — movie starring Aaron Paul is based on the popular videogame series dating back to 1994. It's a disappointing choice for Paul, who riveted viewers with his portrayal of soulful meth head Jesse Pinkman in "Breaking Bad." | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article(1)

Everyone wants to try a new fish fry, right? Because you never know if your favorite is the one you haven't had yet.

I stopped in at a few of the newer fish fries (the ones mentioned here all have opened since late December). Wanting to give cod a rest, I picked places that served freshwater fish, but three of the four listed below do have cod on the menu. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article(4)

Hank the Brewers dog is featured in the new edition of People magazine, which came out Thursday. It's funny when you think about it.

The story explains how Milwaukee Brewers third base coach Ed Sedar found the pup with minor injuries — a tire track on his back and a wonky tail — at the Brewers spring training home in Phoenix. Sedar fed him scrambled eggs and sausage. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article(23)

One of the year's most talked about artists has been around for quite a while. Actually, he's been famous for five decades. In fact, he passed away in 1970 at age 27 from drug-related complications.

It's guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. No stranger to accolades and attention, Hendrix's legacy is being celebrated in several significant ways. The U.S. Postal Service unveiled a Hendrix stamp Thursday. To commemorate the stamp, the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, put together a free Hendrix tribute concert Thursday featuring Slash, the MC5's Wayne Kramer and others. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article(1)

Tickets for all three shows, on the fair's Main Stage, go on sale at 10 a.m. March 21 at WiStateFair.com and at the fair's ticket office, 7722 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article

Is it possible to obsess over a 17th-century painting to the point of giving over part of one's life and a fortune in order to replicate it — all while never really seeing that work of art?

It would seem so, and this is the story of "Tim's Vermeer," an amusing documentary about a Texas-based inventor who sets out to prove Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer was more of a special-effects tinkerer, like himself, than a genius artist. | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article

Times Cinema

"House of Wax": The 1953 horror classic, with Vincent Price as a terrifically ghoulish operator of an even more ghoulish wax museum, was one of the first movies to really use 3-D effectively. See it in 3-D at midnight Friday; admission is $8 (including those glasses). | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article

DUE OUT TUESDAY

AMERICAN HUSTLE (Sony) An FBI sting operation designed to entrap a handful of politicians relies on a deeply flawed trio of partners in crime. Film by "Silver Linings Playbook" director David O. Russell, based on the Abscam sting and ensuing scandal in the late 1970s and early '80s, is an impressive demonstration of film storytelling as the athletic collision of performance and execution. With Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. (R; language, sex) ★★★1/2 | March 13, 2014»Read Full Article

During the gargantuan South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas, there really is music going on morning, noon and night. And against my exhausted body's wishes, I've been catching sets at all hours during SXSW 2014. Case in point: Pop-leaning, buzz-generating electronic dance music act RAC played a Tuesday night set that ended after 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, and by 7:30 a.m., I was checking out horn-blazing soul group St. Paul & the Broken Bones.